Rating: PG-13
Runtime: 2 hours, 30 minutes
Director: James Gunn
Quick Impressions:
Our oldest is here for a couple of days, and we thought it would be fun to go to Guardians of the Galaxy, Vol. 3. as a family. We’ve all been suffering from Marvel fatigue for a while, but for some reason, we still keep going to Marvel movies, so we’re not sending a very clear message to Hollywood.
It’s hard not to want to watch Guardians of the Galaxy. For one thing, Chris Pratt lives at our house. Our daughter asked for a life-sized cardboard cutout of him on her (ironic) (perhaps?) Christmas list, so I surprised her by actually buying her one for her birthday. How can we not go to Chris Pratt’s movie when he’s peering eerily at us every time we turn around? (We like to surprise each other with him, but often, he ends up in strange places and organically surprises everyone. Kind of like year-round Elf on a Shelf. Flat Chris Pratt.)
Also we all loved the new Guardians of the Galaxy: Cosmic Rewind coaster at Disney World last summer (except my seven-year-old who refused to ride). It immediately jumped to the #1 spot on my best Disney roller coaster list (though Expedition Everest is a close second). It’s like what Space Mountain always wanted to be. It made my eyes water so dramatically it washed off my sunscreen. I was blind by the time I got off. I’ve never been so pleasantly surprised by a new ride. (Being in EPCOT where it’s sorely needed makes it even better.)
As it turns out, our twenty-year-old had already seen it, but he said it was good enough to watch again.
His little brother is not the easiest fellow to take to the movies, though. We’ve had some moderately successful attempts recently, so my husband decided to head off any trouble.
“Maybe,” he suggested, “we could take his tablet and headphones and hide him under a blanket.”
“I’ll also need popcorn,” my seven-year-old declared, pointedly reminding us, “You ate it all last time.”
“This time we’ll get two large popcorns,” I decided, adding playfully, “and we’ll give them both to him.”
“We’ll bury him in popcorn,” my daughter suggested. “We’ll just keep adding more and more popcorn until nobody knows he’s there—even he won’t know where he is!”
“And I’ll need a large Icee this time,” he requested. “Last time I got so thirsty.”
“That’s because you got Cheetos instead of candy,” I reminded him. “And then you never asked for any popcorn until it was all gone.”
My husband spent some time selecting the perfect blanket, finding noise cancelling headphones, making sure all parts of his scheme were ready to go.
And then—guess what?
Our son watched the movie!
“I was stunned,” his brother reported. “He suddenly just started watching. He sat there paying close attention for more than an hour.”
“Mom!” my daughter whispered to me in delight as the closing credits started. “He was crying and crying. He was so into Rocket’s story. He says the characters he loves the best are Rocket and Mantis.”
The Rocket storyline—the heart of this movie—really resonated with my son. He hasn’t even seen the other Guardians of the Galaxy movies. (We can’t get him to watch anything!) My daughter pointed to that as a real strength of this movie—its ability to satisfy an audience (i.e. her brother) as a standalone film.
The Good:
The best thing about this third film is that it has a solid story to tell and a reason to exist. The Guardians aren’t just back because everybody likes them, and their movies make money. We’re getting a coherent plot that explores in depth the backstory of an established character (Rocket), plus decent arcs for practically all his associates.
I wasn’t that excited about the movie itself. (I was thinking of it mainly as a fun family outing.) But I got pulled in quickly by the compelling story. The themes seem so relevant to an audience that’s been through a pandemic and is all stressed out and reeling with change and loss and exhaustion and self-reproach. Some of the conversations made me lose myself in my own tortured thoughts. And I couldn’t resist the moments of humor. The Guardians do have a fantastic dynamic. Their comedy works. It’s always funny.
I’m glad James Gunn is back as writer/director, and Dave Bautista is back as Drax, a character I’ve always really liked.
I’m also a big Nebula fan. (To be honest, I like Karen Gillan in everything.) So I’m thrilled that they’ve incorporated her into the crew and given her a sizeable part in this movie. It’s nice the way Nebula successfully teams with Drax and Mantis (Pom Klementieff) and with Peter and Gamora, acting as a useful third person to help illustrate the dynamic of the other two.
What’s really nice, too, is that Gunn finds a way to use Gamora in the form in which she’s available. Zoe Saldana remains a star of the franchise, but they don’t just magically undo events that happened earlier. (I never hear people talking about Zoe Saldana as a big blockbuster star, but she’s been in so many hugely successful franchises—Guardians of the Galaxy, Avatar, Star Trek, Pirates of the Caribbean. Maybe I just don’t talk to the right people.) It would be easier to make Gamora become the other Gamora (either before this movie starts or gradually as it progresses). I think the movie’s much better because it doesn’t attempt this.
This time, the story is centered on Rocket (Bradley Cooper), though Peter (still working through the loss of Gamora) also gets plenty of screentime and development.
Maria Bakalova is perfectly cast as the voice of Cosmo, and Linda Cardellini makes such a sweet Lylla, one of Rocket’s very early friends. I always like Elizabeth Debicki, too. (I’m realizing I really need to re-watch the second Guardians movie because I know she was in that, but all I can remember clearly is the Kurt Russell plotline.) Sylvester Stallone is also in the movie briefly. (So is Nathan Fillion.) Groot (Vin Diesel) does all kinds stuff in this installment and gets a surprising moment at the end. (“He finally decided to grow up and stop screwing with them,” my daughter noted with a chuckle. But we liked the director’s explanation of this scene.)
Best Scene:
Surely this is not really the best scene, but I love the part when they’re trying to show Quill how the coms work with the different colored suits. Honestly, all of comedic moments involving the interplay of the group are what won me this time around.
Best Scene Visually:
Our favorite visual detail involves a light spoiler. The High Evolutionary has replaced something with something else. (I won’t say what.) I like this because it’s such heavy-handed symbolism, like, “Just in case you thought this guy was good…he may look good on the outside, but…”
My daughter made a much more salient point. “He likes to replace things with upgraded, enhanced versions,” she noted. “He’s always working on new evolutions.” He replaces everything with something better as he works towards perfection. Yet he replaces this one particular thing with something he has already deemed to be the perfect version.
Another great visual is the rise of the pyramid. And everyone liked the “Noah’s ark,” moment at the end.
Best Action Sequence:
My seven-year-old told me all the fighting scenes were good. His sister absolutely loved the early fight—told in flashback—between Rocket and The High Evolutionary. (“I was like, ‘Yeah!’”) Her vicious delight reminded me of my grandma who was always saying things like, “I hope he gets his! If he hurts that little animal…”)
My (little) son told me that Gamora trying to pilot the ship at a particular moment is the way I drive all the time.
My daughter loved a particular moment with War Pig (Judy Greer). (Sadly I cannot relay her comments without spoilers.)
The Negatives:
“If Marvel has an overarching plan,” I said to my husband on the way home, “then they need to show a bit of their hand pretty soon. I hope they’re carefully assembling the pieces, and it only looks random because ever since they started phase two…”
“Actually, I think they’re in phase three,” objected my daughter. “Three or four.”
“It’s five, I think,” noted her older brother.
“I think we’re making your point,” noted my husband. “The audience does not know what’s going on. They clearly had everything mapped out up to a point, and I’m not sure they’ve thought beyond that.”
We’re wary. Just this afternoon we were discussing how we tried so hard to believe the most recent Star Wars trilogy was carefully mapped out, that surely there was a plan. We were so trusting for so long…
If the latest crop of Marvel movies are doing something, they’d better make a move in that direction pretty soon. (Admittedly, though, I haven’t been watching all of them.)
“I thought Ragnarok was good,” our older son said.
“Well, yeah, I loved Thor: Ragnarok,” I agreed. “But that’s been a long time ago now.”
“Spider-Man: No Way Home was good, too,” he said, and we were all agreed on that one.
The upcoming superhero movie that looks best to me is The Flash. We keep seeing trailers for that. (“Why is someone letting Ezra Miller have an entire movie when they are fully insane?” my daughter demanded. It’s a good question, but I am excited to see Michael Keaton as Batman again. Ezra Miller is a good actor. I suppose you don’t get too many cults off the ground by being a bad actor.)
But that was the weakest aspect of the movie for us, the cinematic universe surrounding it. Marvel seems to be taking their time building up the next part of the overarching story. And to be honest, I’m not sure I can sustain enough interest in Marvel movies to watch them all until the plan comes into clearer focus.
To me, the biggest weakness of this particular film is its villain. I have no complaints about Chukwudi Iwuji’s performance. But there’s a moment when Peter Quill goes on a big rant about how he’s so sick and tired of facing off against narcissistic megalomaniacs who think they’re God. And I was thinking, “Yeah, that does seem to happen a lot in this franchise.”
I suppose the familiarity of a character like The High Evolutionary could be thought of as elegant simplicity, the kind I’m always failing to pull off because I overcomplicated everything. But to me, he seems a bit stale and also too evil, too easy to hate. Every characteristic he has is what movie audiences just love to hate. I don’t see realistic complexity there. But then again, he is the nemesis of a talking raccoon (unless you ask Rocket). Maybe that level of messy realism isn’t needed. (I do have a worrying habit of falling in love with all my characters and slowly turning my villains into protagonists. So maybe The High Evolutionary lacks something he should lack, and the movie’s on sounder ground here than I am.)
On the other hand, I think the film makes a fairly sophisticated choice in how it uses Peter and Gamora.
“I liked that they didn’t force a romance between them,” I said on the way home, “just ham-fistedly put everything back the way it was.” (When I was a kid, movies did that all the time!)
“Yeah, because you know you would have heard from me about it the whole way home if they had done that,” my daughter said emphatically.
Maybe the inadequacy I’m picking up on is actually a sophisticated examination of the difference between heroes and villains. The heroes are all working on themselves. The villain lacks introspection and is (without enlightenment or growth) tirelessly working on everyone else (through a one-two punch of eugenics and pyrotechnics).
Actually, the arc of Adam Warlock (a winning Will Poulter) supports this reading. You stop being a villain when you choose to change yourself and grow as a person.
Overall:
Guardians of the Galaxy, Vol. 3 is a highly entertaining, funny, moving, ultimately pretty satisfying movie. I’m so thrilled that my seven-year-old watched it. He’s a bit like Rocket himself, quick with a sarcastic joke, and sometimes a bit out of control, but incredibly tender-hearted and caring.